Sibanye Gold, Corning and Strava are the healthiest (and fastest) companies in the world.
That is the conclusion that can be safely reached after those three companies won the men's, women's and mixed divisions, respectively, at the 33rd running of the J.P. Morgan Corporate Challenge Championship in Central Park.
Sibanye, the largest producer of gold in South Africa, took home the honors to its home city of Johannesburg. Corning, experts in precision glass, ceramics and optical physics, proudly represented Rochester, New York. Strava, a popular mobile app and website for competitive runners and cyclists, will bring the mixed trophy back to San Francisco.
Coolboy Ngamole — who won the men's individual title in 15:08 over the 3.2-mile course — led the Sibanye team. He was joined in the winner's circle by teammates Olebogeng Masire, Ntiti Konana and Sipho Mazibuko. Their team winning time was 1:03:56.
Google (San Francisco) and Ernst & Young (London) were second and third in the men's division in 1:07:29 and 1:07:44 respectively.
The fantastic Corning women's team featured Ashley Nevol, Morgan Burrows, Ericka Hachmeister and Katherine Bellor. Their winning time of 1:19:08 was good enough to beat runner-up New York Road Runners (New York, 1:22:12) and Bundespolizei (Frankfurt, 1:24:51).
Crosby Freeman led the Strava team to the mixed title, with championship efforts coming from teammates Steven Garboden, Evelyn Cordner and Rayleen Hsu. Collectively, they timed 1:14:16 and they succeeded in the closest race of the night. Reserve Bank of Australia (Sydney) was just 19 seconds behind in 1:14:35 with Bloomberg (New York) third in 1:15:06.
Boston's Sara Donahue, running for Abt Associates, was the first women's finisher overall, with a terrific 18:01. Corning's Nevol was second in 18:04, Ivette Ramirez of the New York Road Runners third in 18:04.
Sydney's Jeffrey Hunt, representing Macquarie, was second in the men's division, sandwiched by Ngamole and Masire from the men's champions Sibanye Gold.
This was the 26th time the Championship has been held in Manhattan. The first Championship was held at the Meadowlands Racetrack in E. Rutherford, New Jersey in 1983. It moved to Manhattan in 1984, holding the race that year on Wall Street, then went uptown to Park Avenue (with the start and finish line in front of JPMorgan Chase's headquarters) where it was held every year from 1985-2008.
New York was the seventh different city to host the Championship since it adopted its current format as a lead-in to a traditional Corporate Challenge race. Johannesburg hosted the first in 2010, followed in consecutive years by Singapore, Chicago, Rochester, London, San Francisco and now the Big Apple.
